A Modern Guide to Health

1946
Sound
9m

Modern advice and old-fashioned values combine in this postwar animated health guide from the makers of Animal Farm

This 'modern' advice may be over 70 years old, but there's a lot of good common sense contained in this postwar health film. Roughly divided into sections on working men, children, young women and finally housewives, it's this segregation that dates the film. The lot of married women is painted as particularly arduous, with the only help offered being a half-hour break before bed.

Cartoon on general health problems; correct posture, value of exercise and
fresh air, importance of suitable clothes, how to avoid insomnia.

Animation Goes to Work

For those with an official message to get across, animation is the perfect messenger

Animation has an almost magical ability to charm and captivate. And those same qualities also make it a strikingly effective communication tool. It grabs attention, speaks to all ages, and can distil complex messages into simple and appealing visual metaphors. For government or other august bodies, cartoon antics have often been the perfect jam to sweeten the pill of official communications, whether to explain sweeping change or impart health and safety messages. And for the inventive animator, even the most utilitarian brief is no barrier to the most outlandish of treatments.